ERGUE-GABERIC, France (Reuters) - Billionaire corporate
raider turned ecology activist Vincent Bollore on Thursday
opened a factory to produce batteries for electric cars that
could be flooding cities from Tokyo to Turin.

The factory, on the site of a family's paper business
started in 1822, will produce 10,000 lithium-metal-polymer
batteries a year and cost 36 million euros ($52.8 million),
taking investment in the project to 250 million euros, Bollore
said during a press trip to the site.

The BatScap plant is a joint venture between Bollore Group
and state-controlled power utility EDF. The super-capacitors --
energy storage devices -- it produces can be used in electric
cars and hybrid vehicles.

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Bollore and EDF are already developing their own electric
car, the BlueCar.

Bollore announced he had signed a contract with Continental
AG to supply 100,000 modules for BMW cars.

Bollore, who also owns the Direct Soir newspaper and
Direct8 television channel, is a close friend of French
President Nicolas Sarkozy.

The timing looks fortuitous, with oil about $90 a barrel
and car groups such as General Motors Corp, Toyota Motor Corp,
PSA Peugeot Citroen and Renault switching to electric cars from
hybrids which they build on a small scale.

For Bollore, who has large stakes in media group Havas and
media buying firm Aegis Group Plc, batteries are about
business, not just about saving the globe.

BATTERY MAKERS BLOOM

In December, Bollore sealed a joint venture deal with
Italian car design group Pininfarina to put a four-seater
electric car on the market by the summer of 2009.

Cedric Bollore, Bollore's cousin, said on Thursday
Pininfarina would produce cars from 2009 and, from 2012, at a
rate of 15,000 cars per year.

He said the cars would be available by lease at 500 euros
per month and would target densely populated centers such as
Paris, London, New York, Tokyo and San Francisco.

"It will be a second or a third car. It's not aimed at
people with a modest revenue but it helps to reduce CO2,"
Cedric Bollore told reporters.

BatScap is not the only firm working on batteries or
electric vehicles.

Renault on Monday signed a deal for the mass production of
electric cars for Israel using a battery developed by Japan's
NEC Corp and Nissan Motor Co Ltd.

Spain and Portugal last week launched the Mobi-Green
project for a green vehicle running on fuel cells or an
electric engine.

And at the Detroit Motor Show earlier this month, Toyota
President Katsuaki Watanabe said the firm would market a fleet
of rechargeable vehicles by the end of 2010 and was building a
factory for next-generation lithium-ion batteries.

Johnson Controls Inc and France's Saft Groupe SA also
signed a deal to provide batteries for hybrid cars to China's
SAIC Motor Corp.

The big difference between a hybrid and an electric vehicle
is that the latter has no combustion engine. But that raises
questions about the distance a car can run before it needs
recharging, and about speed.

The BlueCar, a concept which has been presented at several
European auto shows, can run 250 km (155.3 miles) between
charges, has a top speed of 125 km per hour and can accelerate
from zero to 60 km per hour in 6.3 seconds.